Epitaxial Growth of MgO and CoFe/MgO on Ge(001) Substrates by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

We report the epitaxial growth of MgO and CoFe/MgO on Ge (001) substrates using molecular beam epitaxy. It was found that the epitaxial growth of a MgO film on Ge could be realized at a low growth temperature of $125{\pm}5^{\circ}C$ and the MgO matches the Ge with a cell ratio of $\sqrt{2}$:1 which renders MgO rotated by $45^{\circ}$ relative to Ge. In-situ and ex-situ structural characterizations reveal the epitaxial crystal growth of bcc CoFe/MgO on Ge with the in-plane crystallographic relationship of CoFe(001)[100] || MgO(001)[110] || Ge(001)[100], exhibiting sharp interfaces in the (001) matching planes. The saturation magnetization of the sample is $1430{\pm}20$ emu/cc, which is comparable to the value of bulk CoFe.